


I'm A Ghost And You Know This

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Consensual Infidelity, Cuddling & Snuggling, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, General Ross' A+ Existance, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hugging, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loneliness, M/M, Polyamory, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce calls Betty late at night, and Tony picks up the phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bruce

When Bruce calls Betty at four am and the person who answers the phone is a guy with a faintly familiar voice, he is not surprised. All he can feel is relief, gentle waves ebbing weakly against the numbness he lives in these days.

'Betty left her phone at my place. I can deliver your message when I go bring it back to her in the morning.' The voice is soft and hoarse and Bruce knows he woke this guy, wishes it would feel like a victory, but he has no desire for revenge.

'I'm her boyfriend,' Bruce says. It's not a good thing to say, but he called Betty because when he gets like this, all lonely and aching for a knife, just to hold it, she can tell from the way his voice sounds and she'll talk to him on the phone until it's over, until he's only feeling numb again, and maybe a little hopeful. He needs this guy to do that for him now, distract him until the heart palpitations stop and the panicked feeling passes.

'Oh, um... She told me...' He can practically see the guy scratch the back of his neck. He hasn't connected the voice to a face, yet, but he imagines a guy deserving of Betty Ross, beautiful and gentle and with a sparkle in his eye. That he has none of these things does not even send a pang of fear trough him anymore, though he remembers how it's supposed to feel. 'She told me you know about this.'

'I do.' He can hear the guy breathing at the other end of the line and holds his own breath. This guy has Betty's taste is his mouth, probably kissed her less than an hour ago, before she showed herself out, leaving her phone on his bedside table. She stopped forgetting stuff at Bruce's home when he started taking a razor to his skin. 'Do you love her?'

'No,' the guy says at just the right time, the exact moment that someone who isn't lying would say it. Bruce wants to trust him, wants to make that decision consciously, but Betty already made it for him. If she trusts this guy enough to let him fill the gaps Bruce has stopped filling months ago, Bruce will trust him, too.

'She doesn't love you either,' Bruce says softly. He isn't trying to hurt the guy, just wants him to know that he knows this, that he doesn't need to be pitied.

'I know. But she loves you.' His voice tells Bruce that Betty has told him about Bruce's mental health, tells him exactly how much he knows. Nothing about the gun he keeps in the back of his closet, but plenty about the self-harm, except for the times he forces himself not to eat or sleep for three days so that he can feel clean again. He knows that Bruce often has heart palpitations and the scary feeling in his chest, but that panic attacks are less frequent, even though they still come once a week most of the time. He knows that Betty can barely touch Bruce, that he flinches away every time she does and that she feels hurt every time he pretends he didn't. He knows that Bruce tried to kill himself two years ago, but not why. It makes Bruce feel guilty for letting Betty take all of this on, reminds him that this is the exact reason why he has been grateful to some anonymous face for fucking his girlfriend these last few weeks.

Though he's not a stranger anymore. 'You're Tony Stark, right?', he asks. He knows the guy from school, enough to recognize his voice, enough to realize he could've figured it out earlier if he had been paying attention. Betty and Tony are both geniuses, love to argue about anything scientific, could go on for hours if the school bell didn't interrupt them every time, probably continue their conversations when they go to Tony's house to fuck.

Tony Stark answers with surprise in his voice. Bruce hears something resembling pity, too, but pretends he doesn't. 'She told you she was fucking someone but not who?'

'Probably because we have half our classes together. I didn't press. I don't - She isn't as stressed out as she used to be. Before you she used to call me in the middle of the night just to check if I was still alive. You're keeping her sane.'

Tony just hums and Bruce feels sick when he realizes Tony's feeling like he's out of his depth, here. 

'Did you fuck her just now?', Bruce asks, because he doesn't want to talk about anything having to do with himself anymore.

'Yeah,' Tony says softly. 'She left half an hour ago.'

'Next time you should let her hold you before she goes. She loves to hold people.'

Tony just hums again in that non-committal way, like there's something else on his mind.

'I'm not going to kill myself,' Bruce says, voice tight. He doesn't want to be treated like something made out of glass, chemicals that would blow up if mixed on either side. 'I'm not going to cut myself. I'm not going to have a panic attack,' he says, every word clear and dislocated, like he's not talking about himself.

'It's not that. Well, it's a bit of that, but it's also the fact that my mom called me once to tell me dad and her were on their way home and six minutes after she ended the call, they died in a car accident. I haven't made or picked up a single call ever since.'

Bruce doesn't say anything, because he doesn't know what there is to say.

'Would it be weird if I came over after having fucked your girlfriend?'

'Yes, but I wouldn't mind.'

'Okay. I think I'm pretty sure where you live. It's that blue house on Pepper's street, right?'

'Yeah. Do you want me to stay on the phone until you get here?'

'I'll put it on speaker in the car.'

There's a silence and Bruce hears rustling, several thunks, a car door slamming shut and then the hum of the engine. This noise is the only thing he can hear for three minutes. He watches them tick away while he puts one word after the other in his head. 'So why did you pick up this call?', he asks eventually.

'What?'

'You haven't picked up any calls since your parents died and now you pick up mine. Why?'

'Because I knew it was going to be you. Because I was hoping you'd tell me to stop fucking your girlfriend.'

Bruce doesn't say anything for a while. 'I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't try to take anything from her.' _Not if I've already taken so much._

Another silence falls and Bruce imagines he's in the car with Tony, tries to find his breathing past the sound of the engine and when he doesn't, makes it up. He can almost see houses and trees and streetlights flash by though the window, can almost feel the perfect calm that he only feels in a car at night, when he knows he's invisible and no one is following him, not even his own demons.

'Why can't Betty touch you?', Tony asks then and it feels like the question is part of the silence.

'I don't know,' Bruce whispers, trying really hard not to ruin it. 'I wish I did, so that I could do something about it. I used to - It used to be the only moment I felt safe, when she was touching me.' They stopped fucking after his second suicide attempt, the one they never talk about ever, the one that he has convinced himself wasn't a suicide attempt as much as it was his usual self harm. He knows Betty thinks that him not wanting to touch her has something to do with it, but he started flinching away from her touch much later, without any reason he can pinpoint. 

'And now?', Tony asks, like Bruce's answer means more to him than Bruce realizes.

'I never feel safe.'

He can hear the soft hiss of the breath Tony lets out at that. 'How do you sleep, when you feel like this?'

'Deeply. It's harder when I'm awake.'

'I'm in your street,' Tony says after a while and they are silent until Bruce is opening the door for Tony.

'Hi,' Tony says then and he ends the call, though neither of them is holding their phone to their ear anymore. 'Thank you. I'm sorry.'

Bruce takes his hand and tugs him inside. These are both rare things, him initiating touch and him staying calm when being touched, but it's the closest he has felt to Betty in weeks, so he doesn't question it.

The moment in which the front door shuts behind Tony and Bruce leads him inside and Tony walks right into his arms, Bruce grabbing him tight around his waist and burying his face against Tony's shoulder - it all feels like exhaling after holding his breath for too long. It feels like stepping out of a crowded room into the quiet, cold night.

One of Tony's hands lands on the back of his head, the other around his neck. He's sighing something against Bruce's temple, but Bruce isn't listening for words, only for Tony's heartbeat, the whisper of his clothes. Proof that he's real, that he's really standing this close to Bruce. Voices can come from anywhere, but Bruce is looking for things he can only hear from right here, in Tony's embrace.

When he is reassured, he finally hears what Tony is saying, a gentle rambling about nothing at all, about everything. He tells Bruce he's beautiful. He tells him Betty is beautiful, too, and that she loves him very much. He tells him they're going to be okay, and explains black holes to him. Bruce nods into his shoulder until they're swaying in a rhythm that isn't a dance as much as it's a shared heartbeat, proof that they're both alive.

Bruce lets go first, because he knows Tony won't. 'Come,' he says and it doesn't break the moment, becomes part of the silence the way Tony is, brown eyes big and open and trusting. Bruce keeps a hold of his hand as he guides him to his bedroom. 'I don't want sex,' he says. 'Just...'

'I get it,' Tony says and he kicks off his shoes, waiting for Bruce to take the next step.

Bruce does, pulling up the covers of his bed and lying down, keeping them up as an invitation to Tony, who comes to lie beside him. 'How do you build robots?', Bruce asks. It's a stupid sort of question, but it's the only way he knows to ask for a distraction. He doesn't want to sleep yet, not when he's feeling safe.

They're lying on their sides, turned towards each other, not touching except for where Bruce is holding onto Tony's shirt under the covers. Bruce can see in the dark that Tony's eyes are focused on him. He starts to explain; what materials are best for robots with specific purposes, how to get the arms and legs to move, what other features to install, what colours would look the coolest.

Five sentences in, Tony's fingers find Bruce's chest and start to draw out the shapes he's describing - hydraulic presses and mechanical wings and repulsors. He feels so alive against Bruce, so human as his breath warms Bruce's cheeks. Bruce leans towards him and Tony hugs him again, tightly, and whispers the rest of his explanation into Bruce's ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wanted to make this into a multichaptered story/series, but the rest isn't coming for now. Would anyone be interested, though?
> 
> Title: Heartbeat by Childish Gambino


	2. Betty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty rolls her eyes, but she's grinning through the fear of seeing Bruce like this. She's always afraid when she's seeing him these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm making this a three chapter thing for now, but if anyone has any suggestions as to where they'd like this story to go, I'd love to hear them.

Bruce returns Betty's phone Saturday morning, even though she left it at Tony's the night before. He only glances at her briefly before his eyes drift to the ground again and it makes her stomach clench with guilt. She should have told Bruce herself, that it was Tony she was seeing, should have told him earlier, shouldn't be seeing Tony at all. She takes the phone from him quietly, making sure their fingers don't touch, and wishes he'd hug her tight and press his lips to her temple the way he used to. She wishes she could reach for his waist and press her lips to his jaw like she always did.

Then she sees that Bruce is smiling and the knot in her belly loosens a little. She hasn't seen him smile in a long time, not like this. It's a small smile, but there's nothing forced about it, nothing pained or apologetic or self-deprecating. He looks serene, like he slept longer than he usually does. His curls are still messy, though she knows she'd be able to smell his shampoo if she came close enough.

Bruce turns, having said nothing to her except for 'You left your phone at Tony's.' She knows that he'll say 'I love you' as soon as she can't see his face anymore, but she doesn't want to hear it, how sick he sounds, like the idea physically hurts him.

She reaches for his shoulder, but stops herself before she touches him. 'Do you want to come in?', she asks instead, opening the front door further, allowing more of the crisp morning air to bite into her bare feet and legs. 'My dad already left for work.' She tugs at the too-big T-shirt she's wearing. It's one of Bruce's, though it doesn't smell of him anymore.

He looks surprised and that's what hurts the most, not the flinching or the cuts that run down his thighs or the way he looks when he hasn't eaten in two days, speech slow and eyes unfocused. It's how surprised he is when she shows him any kind of caring, even if it's just this, asking him to stay.

'Of course,' he says, turning back towards her. 'Is your mother home? I haven't seen her in a while.'

She smiles at him, stepping aside and then closing the door behind him. She has learned how not to touch him by now, how not to scare him away. 'Yes. She made breakfast, if you want any.'

'I'd like that,' he says and Betty could cry with relief. As long as he's eating, Bruce is holding on.

He follows her to the back porch, where her mother is sitting at a table set for three, her plate and Betty's are still half full. Her father's is empty except for crumbs. When her mother sees Bruce, she stands, picking up the plate with the crumbs and smiling at Bruce, eyes crinkling. 'Bruce. It's been so long. I was starting to think you broke up with Betty.'

She walks towards him and Betty prepares for Bruce cringing away, but he doesn't, though his fists are clenched and his nails are digging into his palms. 

'Good thing you didn't.' She kisses him on the cheek, hugging him gently. 'There's no one better than her.'

His smile has turned forced, as it usually is. His eyes are distant like he wants to run. 'I know.'

'Mom,' Betty says. 'Don't exaggerate.'

'I don't think you're exaggerating,' Bruce tells her mom sincerely. He smiles at Betty, the tension leaving him when her mother lets go of his shoulders.

Betty rolls her eyes, but she's grinning through the fear of seeing him like this. She's always afraid when she's seeing him these days. 'I'd be annoyed if you weren't so charming.'

He smiles at her, but his eyes are still that scary kind of dull and she can't look at him. Instead she takes the plate her mom is still holding and takes it to the kitchen. She puts it in the sink and gets a new plate, a glass and a butter knife for Bruce, running the pad of her thumb over the cutting end almost subconsciously, as if she's afraid Bruce will take it to his skin instead of using it to cut his bread.

When she returns, Bruce is sitting where her dad sat only twenty minutes ago, looking uncomfortable as her mother talks to him about her new job as a guidance councelor. She doesn't tell him she's moving to Colorado in the fall because of that job, or that dad and her are getting a divorce.

Betty sets the table for Bruce and he watches her hands as she does so. He once told her how much he loved her hands, held them to his mouth as he spoke, pressed kisses to them in between his words. She wishes they could be like that again, or that she at least knew why they aren't, but she thinks he doesn't know, either.

He thanks her softly and grabs an orange from the bowl in the middle of the table. He peels it delicately as he listens to her mother's stories, everything he's missed since she last spoke to him more than a month ago.

Then she gets up and picks up her briefcase and kisses both of them on the top of their head. They tell her goodbye and listen as she walks through the house and closes the front door behind herself. All that is left after that is silence.

It lasts long enough for Betty to notice that Bruce's breathing is in sync with hers, something he still does sometimes when he can't keep his breathing controlled on his own. It's intimacy, too, not touch, but closeness. It makes her ache in a way she doesn't understand, makes her want to claw out her own chest just to make it stop. She wonders if this is how Bruce sometimes feels.

She smiles at him and puts her hand on the table instead of reaching for his. 'How are you, Bruce?', she asks gently. They're almost like strangers now, only she knows how he likes his tea best and that he studies every day 'till six and works out for a half an hour after that and that he does this because it makes him feel like he's in control and that he tried to kill himself twice, not once like he says and she knows what his voice sounds like when he wants to cut himself and she remembers what his lips taste like, how warm he is against her skin.

He looks shy, glances up at her and then back at the orange peel he's digging the nail of his thumb into. 'I like Tony,' he says. 'He's kind.'

She nods. 'He is.'

'He came over last night, because I called you and he picked up and I touched him and I didn't panic.' His voice is soft and steady and hopeful and it hurts so much to listen to, but his words make something flutter in her stomach.

'That's great,' she says softly, fingers tracing patterns on the white tablecloth. 'That's so great, Bruce.'

He smiles at her. 'It is.'

A silence falls and Bruce looks back at his orange peel, the moment over.

'I was going to take a shower,' Betty says, getting up. She moves to pick up her plate, but Bruce's fingers brush against hers as he takes it first.

'I'll put the plates away,' he says softly. 'And then I'll come up and join you, if that's okay.' He doesn't look at her, clutching the plate tightly as he braces himself for rejection.

'Of course it's okay,' she says, forcing herself not to touch his shoulder. She waits until he makes eye contact with her and gives her a quick smile before she goes upstairs, even though she knows he only does it because her staring is making him uncomfortable.

She has her own bathroom and it's a complete mess. By the time she has tidied everything slightly, she can hear Bruce coming up the stairs. When he enters, she's brushing her hair.

He stands behind her and they make eye contact in the mirror for a moment. 'Let me,' he says then, taking the brush from her and gently combing through her knotted hair. The fingers of his free hand settle on her shoulder, thumb caressing her skin gently through her T-shirt. When he's done, he steps back and she feels hollow, feels like every cell of her is reaching for him.

She takes off her shirt and her shorts and looks at Bruce, who is tugging at the hem of his own shirt uncomfortably. 'Do you want to join me?', she asks. 'We won't have sex if you don't want that. We don't even have to touch. The shower is big enough.'

He nods and slowly takes of his shirt. She knows he's putting off taking off his pants, exposing the scars and cuts on his thighs. He tugs off his shoes and his socks and takes of his belt and only then undoes his zipper. He rushes off his pants as if he wants to get it over with, then takes off his underwear.

They haven't been naked at the same time in weeks and she feels lightheaded with how much she misses him, even though he's standing right there.

She walks into the shower and he follows, close. She turns on the water and then he says 'Don't move' and she stills. She can feel his hands in her hair, making sure it's completely wet and then turning off the water and massaging shampoo into her hair. She sighs happily and after he turns the water back on and washes out all the shampoo, making sure none of it gets into her eyes, she leans her head against his shoulder and he lets her, tensing and then relaxing completely.

'I miss you,' he says as he starts to wash her body. He avoids her sensitive spots, makes sure this can't turn into anything sexual and it doesn't matter. She doesn't want sex, either, right now. She wants to reconnect with him, to be able to know how he's feeling just by touching his skin. That's how they used to be, what they used to be to each other. Silence, hands always touching, watching a muted storm from behind thick glass. It's not something Tony will ever be able to give her, not something she'd want from him even if he could, if she could.

'I miss you, too,' she whispers.

His lips press against her temple and then he steps back a little, turning the water back on and chasing away the last of the soap with his hands. 'Conditioner?', he asks and it's such a normal question, a habit from when they used to wash each other almost every day.

'No.' She turns slowly and then they aren't touching anymore, Bruce's hands having dropped to his sides. 'Can I do you?' She isn't sure what he'll say. Initiating touch is one thing, but being on the receiving end, in Bruce's position, must be harder.

He seems nervous, but he nods. 'I washed my hair yesterday,' he says, so she squeezes shower gel into her hand and says 'chest' and slowly, deliberately moves her hand to his chest, rests it there for a moment before she starts moving it across his skin. Bruce is watching her hands, breathing though his mouth and stiffening at seemingly random moments. Every time she stills and waits until he relaxes again. This goes on for a while, them remembering each other, falling back into a dance that they haven't done in a long time.

She doesn't know what triggers him eventually. Maybe she's just been touching him for too long, maybe she touched the wrong spot, but Bruce steps away abruptly, breaking contact. He stands uncomfortably against the shower wall, fidgeting. 'I'm sorry,' he says.

'It's okay. This...' She smiles. 'This is progress.'

He's smiling a little, too, a genuine sort of smile. 'I really want to kiss you,' he says.

'Then do. I won't move.'

He seems so stunned for a moment, but then he leans in slowly, putting one hand on her cheek and stroking back her hair with the other. His lips touch hers softly, like he's holding back and the contact only lasts for a couple of seconds, but it leaves Betty feeling warm and full and hopeful.


	3. Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not as scary as he'd thought it would be, admitting it, more like skydiving than like having his heart quit on him for half a minute back when he was twelve.

When Tony goes to Betty's Saturday afternoon, Bruce is sitting on the couch with a mug of tea and some crappy movie is playing on TV. Tony wants to turn and leave, but Betty can probably tell from the way he looks around, because she stops him with a hand on his upper arm. 'Stay,' she says and that's that. He doesn't want to go anyway.

He puts down his bag by the door and kicks off his shoes. Then he sits down in the chair usually reserved for Betty's father and looks over at Bruce, who is moving to get up and setting his mug on the coffee table. 'I'll go,' he says with a sheepish smile. 'You two have fun.' He seems tenser than he did yesterday night, doesn't meet Tony's eyes.

'We're just doing homework today,' Tony says, smile steely because this isn't really a situation for actual smiles. Boyfriend leaves so that his girlfriend can fuck someone else in peace. 'And that's not a euphemism.'

'Oh,' Bruce sinks back down. He seems confused by this new information, like he's surprised their relationship doesn't solely consist of sex. Tony was surprised, too, at first, and scared, because there's a difference between friends with benefits and actually being good friends with the person you fuck. He still isn't sure if he can do the latter. There's a rule that they can't kiss each other on the lips, but it doesn't make it easier not to love her. 'Am I invited?', Bruce asks.

'Of course,' Betty says and Tony can tell from the way she holds her hands that she wants to touch Bruce, but she doesn't. Her eyes turn sad when she sees how stunned Bruce looks and Tony hopes he'll never understand how much she loves him.

For a moment, Bruce looks genuinely happy at being welcome, _wanted_ , then his smile becomes smaller, but his eyes are still shining. 'Oh. I promised my aunt to help her clean the house. I'm sorry.' He whispers something to Betty and presses a lingering kiss to her temple before getting up from the couch. 'Bye, Tony,' he says then and he kisses Tony, too, on the cheek.

Betty needs a moment to shake herself out of her daze before she follows Bruce to the door and they exchange a few more words Tony doesn't bother to listen to before the door shuts and Betty comes back into the living room. He has always known what role he plays in Betty's life, but he's never felt more like a substitute than he does now.

'How are your parents?', Tony asks while he gets up to fish the remote out of the pile of blankets on the couch. He turns off the TV when he finds it and sits, claiming the soft blankets that smell more of Bruce than of the Rosses.

Betty sits down beside him and sighs. 'Still going through with the divorce. There's not much else to say.' It's a routine question, a routine answer, things they talk about when they're taking off their clothes or putting them back on.

He wants to touch her, soothe her, but he doesn't, because he doesn't know how. 'There's always something to say,' he says instead. 'I could rant about my parents for hours and they've been dead for two years.'

'I don't want to talk about them.'

'And about Mr. Talbot?' Tony doesn't want to talk about him, the teacher who noticed Betty's talent for Biology and decided to mentor her personally, who's like family to her and is slowly dying of cancer. It reminds him too much of Yinsen, who taught Tony about engineering, challenged him and acted more like his father than Howard ever did. Who went to visit his family in Afghanistan, got kidnapped by terrorists and never came back. 

'He's getting worse. The chemo isn't working. When he isn't too scared to think he explains me his research. He wants me to finish it.'

'Can you?' Tony does touch her now, subtly, spreads his legs a little so that their knees touch and pulls up his blanket, puts it over Betty's legs, too. 

'I'm not as driven as him. I told him that, but he doesn't care. He says he doesn't even really care if I actually finish it, he just needs to know it doesn't die with him.' She smiles at Tony, brave and watery. 'I'm going to try, though.' In that moment Tony loves her so much that he can barely stand it. He's had feelings for her since all of this started, but it's nothing he needs to act upon, nothing that isn't easier from afar, nothing that seems impossible to bear on his own until moments like this. 

Tony just nods and doesn't make any shitty remarks about sentimentality when Betty rests her head on his shoulder. He combs his fingers through her hair as he wonders what kind of answer he'll get at his next question. 'What about Bruce?' It used to be another routine question, another stranger whom Betty didn't talk about with anyone else, but now things are different and the question has changed in meaning.

She shakes her head against his shoulder. 'I don't know. He's doing so well right now, but that only means there's a low coming. He was at his low already, I think, before you came along.'

They sit there in silence for a while, staring at the black screen of the TV, at the steam coming off the mug Bruce left on the coffee table.

'You're falling for him, aren't you,' Betty says after a while, and she doesn't even pretend it's a question.

Tony skirts around these kinds of conversations, usually, avoids and denies and deflects, but Betty knows him better than anyone else, even Rhodey, even Pepper; and he knows her better than everyone but Bruce, so instead he says, 'Yes.' It's not as scary as he'd thought it would be, admitting it, more like skydiving than like having his heart quit on him for half a minute back when he was twelve.

'I don't mind,' she says. 'I think you're good for him. He wouldn't believe multiple people are capable of loving him at once unless we show him.'

She gets up, disappears into the kitchen but talks to him from there. 'My father called to tell me he'll be staying in Michigan for a couple of days because of some tests getting delayed.' Her voice is trembling and he knows what kind of story this will be. Her father will do something disappointing in the end and she'll try to hate him for it. It will make her sad and Tony won't have any idea what to do. 'As soon as Bruce heard who it was he went rigid. It took him two hours before he was willing to touch me again.' He hears water pouring and she returns with two full glasses. 'So I called my dad back up and asked him if he did anything to Bruce, even if it had already been a while.' She gives him one of the glasses and he thanks her. 'He told me he only talked to him once, a bit after Bruce had had to stay in the hospital for two days. That's when he stopped touching me. My father said he called him a freak.'

Tony remembers the time Betty was so angry she was almost crying because someone at school had said 'freak' - just in a casual way, like 'freak out' or 'freak accident' - and Bruce had heard and it had taken ten minutes to calm him down and Betty had been so frustrated because _how could anyone do that to Bruce? How could anyone be so cruel that one word's enough to-_

'He said Bruce got a panic attack and then he pretended he had been polite about it because he had waited for Bruce to calm back down before he continued saying whatever he was saying to him. _He just fucking sat there._ ' Betty's breathing is ragged, her voice rough.

Tony wants to soothe her, wants to take all the expectations she has from her father out of her and hide them so that she can never be disappointed by him again. He wants to hold her, let her hold him, but he cares about her from afar, has no idea how to translate that to something solid. Emotion and touch have always been separate for him, it's safer that way.

He doesn't say anything, just looks up at her as her knuckles turn white around the glass in her hands. 'Bruce couldn't touch me because I remind him of my father and my father reminds him of _his_ father and Bruce doesn't even know.'

'The three of us could start a club,' he says, because he can't say anything else, can't get any proper words out past the image of Bruce standing in front of the chair he had been sitting in only minutes ago as Ross waited patiently for him to catch his breath. 'Science and daddy issues.'

She looks so fucking lost, standing by the coffee table and biting her lip, that he reaches out, first to put away her glass and then for her. They hold each other for a while and Tony thinks this is a kind of intimacy that shouldn't exist at three pm.

'So,' she says after a while, all of the shakiness gone. 'Homework?'

-

Betty gets the call at four pm, only a week later, and again it crosses Tony's mind that these kinds of things should only happen at night. Nobody should feel this hopeless in the middle of the day.

'Thanks for calling,' she whispers and there's something hollow about her voice, like she's said this before. 'We'll be there as soon as we can. I'm so sorry.'

She doesn't put down the phone, so he comes closer and pries it out of her fingers, slips it into her pocket. Her eyes track his movements, but they are the only part of her moving. 

They stand there, an inch apart, the air around them trembling, or maybe it's them, it's hard to tell. Then Tony leans in and kisses Betty's lips, so soft that it's almost like he doesn't want her to notice. She tilts up her head a little, but doesn't kiss him back. Another careful kiss and then he moves on to her cheeks, kisses the tears and the silence and the tiredness away until Betty starts sobbing and collapses against him. She fists the back of his shirt, makes a sound like she's angry at him. Tony isn't crying, but there's something in his chest that feels like it's alive and pushing against his ribs. Maybe it's a heart attack, maybe it's something worse.

Neither of them says his name, but they both know whom this is about. 'He isn't dead,' Betty whispers. 'Overdosed, cut himself up pretty bad, but not dead.'

She cries into his shoulder and then he's crying, too, quietly. It's been a long time since he last cried, long before his parent's funeral and this is the first time he cries over something important, something worse than a scraped knee or his first robot lying on the floor in bits where his father threw it down.

'His aunt told me what room he's in. We should head to the hospital,' she says after a while and before she lets go she looks at him and presses her lips his. Then she takes the car keys from her desk and starts towards the stairs, wiping away the last of her tears with the back of her hand.

-

Only family is allowed into Bruce's room, so they sit in the waiting room, Tony leaning his head against Betty's shoulder and letting her hold him. Sometimes, Bruce's aunt or uncle comes to tell them how Bruce is doing - the same, sleeping it off, he should be fine, no complications, they had to stich up some of the cuts, he's doing good for the condition he's in says the doctor, he'll be okay, he's alive, he's alive.

It goes dark outside the windows and the waiting room gets busier. Tony watches people, makes up their stories the way he used to do with his mom when she was still alive.

There's an elderly black man sitting opposite them and Tony tilts his head up to whisper into Betty's ear. 'That man has been married twice,' he tells her. 'But both of his wives died, so he wears both their rings. He's lonely sometimes, but a friend of his has a boat - an old battered one - and sometimes he borrows that boat and takes it all the way out to the sea and doesn't feel so lonely anymore. Sometimes he hopes the sea will swallow him whole, though he never goes out in stormy weather. He slit his wrist once, that's why he holds his sleeves like that. Right arm, because he's left handed. But that was back when his second wife was alive and she saved him.' His mother was better at his, could come up with stories that weren't as sad as his, told them vividly, so that Tony could feel the sun on him at a restaurant in the evening, could smell snow in the middle of summer.

Betty chuckles softly. 'We used to make up people's eulogies, Bruce and I, used to come up with what they were good at, what they'd be remembered by, who would be missing them, who would read the eulogy and what their funeral would be like. This man... He'd be remembered by his daughters. Four of them. He had a son once, but he died in a plane crash. He started painting after his second wife died, abstract stuff with a lot of colours. There will be a painting at his funeral and they will talk about it in his eulogy. His second eldest daughter will read it for him. She's his first daughter with his second wife. She won't cry, only after. The family of his first wife won't be there, because they never forgave him for remarrying after her death. The family of his second wife will be there, though they weren't close. His own family is mostly dead, only a cousin and a few nieces and nephews left. He had a lot of friends, though, from when he used to volunteer at a homeless shelter.'

For a moment, Tony wants to pull her closer, but then he realizes they're already close, already good, and something inside of his settles peacefully. He can feel Betty become earnest beside him, feels it shift in the air around them. He looks around at the people in the waiting room and is glad that they can't feel it.

'I have it written. His eulogy. I've had it for years, rewritten and adjusted. I'd read it to him, when he got bad. And we would both cry and he would give me his gun and his razors and his knives and promise me he wasn't going to do it. I know it by heart, from how many times I've read it for him. I wish I'd never have to read it again. Not until I'm eighty and Bruce has died of natural causes or prolonged exposure to gamma radiation like Marie Curie. Not until I've met his children and his grandchildren and his partner or married him myself and raised our children with him or _at least seen him graduate_.'

She buries her head in Tony's hair and kisses him. He could turn and kiss her back, but there's time for that, there's plenty of time. 'We will, I promise. He'll graduate and go to college and graduate again and get a job and grow tired of it and cheat on his lover and make mistakes and fix them and he'll be happy and sad and in love and he'll do incredible things and win a Nobel prize and kiss too many people in one night. He'll grow so old that he won't even remember what he felt like today. I promise.'

'I promise,' she echoes against his hair and he can feel her smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! This is it for now, but if anyone has any suggestions, you can leave those in the comments, too. :)   
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
